Lemuel Smith

About Lemuel Smith

Lemuel Warren Smith (born July 23, 1941), is a convicted serial killer and rapist from Upstate New York who was the first convict ever to kill an on-duty female corrections officer. Lemuel Smith was born in Amsterdam, New York in a very religious African-American household. During later insanity claims, Smith stated that when he was 11 years old, he nearly smothered a nine-year-old girl to death. This claim was not substantiated, however. On January 21, 1958, Dorothy Waterstreet was robbed and beaten to death near Smith's neighborhood in Amsterdam, New York. Evidence pointed towards the 16-year-old Smith, but the case fell apart when the district attorney was too hasty in trying to extract a confession, and Smith was not arrested. During the following summer, while under continuing pressure from Amsterdam police, Smith relocated to Baltimore, Maryland, where he kidnapped a 25-year-old woman and beat her nearly to death.

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